With the constantly reduced size of the notebook computer, the conventional 2.5-inch hard disk drive (HDD) could no longer meet the requirement of the compact notebook computer, and a new 1.8-inch HDD has been developed and widely adopted for use. The 1.8-inch HDD produced by some notebook computer manufacturers, such as Toshiba, is not provided with screw holes. Such hard disk drive is difficult to mount. Currently, most notebook computer manufacturers utilize a rubber material and a supporting frame to fix the hard disk drive in place in the notebook computer. While it protects the hard disk drive against vibration, the rubber material is not electrically conductive and is not able to ground the hard disk drive. Therefore, some other structural material must be additionally used to achieve the purpose of grounding the hard disk drive. The additional structural material would inevitably increase the manufacturing cost of the notebook computer.
Anti-vibration and grounding are two major tests that must be conducted by existing notebook manufacturers for the hard disk drive when the same is installed on a notebook computer, so as to ensure the hard disk drive meets the standards. In addition, it is known the hard disk drive in operation would inevitably cause electromagnetic interference (EMI) and adversely affect the operation of the notebook computer and the user's health. Therefore, many countries demand that electronic products must pass the electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) test before they are allowed for sale in the market.
Taiwan Invention Application No. 094207592 discloses an anti-vibration structure for hard disk drive, which is a case having a plurality of sides and two open front and rear ends. A plurality of elastic members are integrally formed on the a plurality of sides, so that a hard disk drive may be extended into and received in the case via one open end thereof. The elastic members buffer an impact on the hard disk drive when an electronic device having the hard disk drive mounted therein collides with some other things. While the above invention effectively solves the vibration problem encountered by the hard disk drive, it does not provide the function of shielding EMI to and from the hard disk drive.
Another Taiwan Invention Application No. 094211325 discloses an anti-EMI and anti-vibration grounding device for hard disk drive, which includes a hard disk drive and two electrically conductive frames. Each of the two conductive frames is a lying U-shaped member including an elongated vertical wall and two horizontal walls parallelly extended in the same direction from two opposite upper and lower edges of the vertical wall to thereby define a sideward opening. The two horizontal walls of each conductive frame are provided with a plurality of elastic protrusions each, and the sideward openings of the two conductive frames may be separately fitted on two opposite sides of the hard disk drive, such that the elastic protrusions are compressed against a lower cover and an upper cover of a drive bay of an electronic device when the hard disk drive is received in the drive bay. While the grounding device for hard disk drive disclosed in the above invention solves the vibration and EMI problems encountered by the hard disk drive, it is of a complicate two-piece structure to thereby increase the difficulty and cost in manufacturing and assembling a notebook computer.